Party Realigment, Ideological Polarization and Bipartisanship in the United States: An Analysis of Primaries

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23330041
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Politics
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: kubo fumiaki 東京大学, 法学(政治学)研究科(研究院), 教授 (00126046)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): YAMAGISHI Takakazu 南山大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (00454405) ; MATSUOKA Yasushi 熊本県立大学, 総合管理学部, 教授 (40190425) ; SUGAWARA Kazuyuki 釧路公立大学, 経済学部, 准教授 (90433119)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: アメリカ / リベラル / 政党 / イデオロギー / 分極化 / 予備選挙 / 超党派主義 / 保守

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Series of analyses were conducted in this project to prove that the primaries are at least one of the most important causes for ideological polarization of the politics and the political parties of the United States. Just during the period of this research project, the Tea Party has risen to prominence in the Republican Party even to bring about a government shutdown in 2013. Without the primary system, its rise would have been impossible. By embracing the Tea Partiers, the Republican Party pushed itself to further right.
However, the rise of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election might suggest that this rigid pattern of ideological polarization is coming to its limits so much so that it is dislocating the existing pattern of political party alignment. Some of the research products in the final year mentioned this possibility.

Free Research Field

アメリカ政治